


The Next Morning

by AngiePen



Category: Actor RPF, Lord of the Rings RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 22:46:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngiePen/pseuds/AngiePen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orlando wakes up alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Next Morning

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first story I wrote after getting into fanfic in 2004. I'd stumbled into RPS accidentally, and after getting over my initial O_O reaction to the concept, I tried a couple and was an immediate convert. I just happened to start out in the Viggo/Orlando end of the fandom, and my first few stories were all based on that pairing, before I started branching out.

You were gone when I woke up this morning. It means nothing, really. You had an early call, while I wasn’t needed until this afternoon. Letting me sleep – rising, dressing, leaving, all as silently done as a ranger stalking the shyest doe – was a sweet thing to do. A considerate thing. A nice thing. And you’re always nice, aren’t you?

Driving back to my place for clothes, and then back across town to make my appointment with leggings and hairpins and ear glue, through what Wellington calls noontime traffic, everything along the familiar route was different. It all felt insignificant, false, superficial; the world felt like a movie set, and I was an actor who hadn’t read the script. I had a scene coming up, an important one, with you, and I had no idea what to do or say. I didn’t even know the setting. Would it be a casual encounter as we passed on the lot? An earnest talk over coffee? A long, rambling conversation full of “what if?” and “some day?” back at your place over the remains of dinner?

Or maybe the whole scene’s been cut and I didn’t get the word.

There was no sign of you in our trailer, nothing that isn’t always there. I looked around for anything out of place – a note, a scrap of poetry, a scribbled drawing, some indication of what’s going to happen and when and where, and what my lines will be. Everything was in its place, though, and the clutter had never looked so sterile.

I stepped out of makeup feeling hollow, wondering if maybe you had left me a message after all, back at your house, early this morning. Thank you for auditioning but we’ve cast someone else. We’ll contact your agent if we have any questions. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Then on the way to the set I turn a corner to take a shortcut between two trailers and there you are. I hear in my mind the director call “Action!” but I still don’t know my lines and all I can do is look at you, watching for a sign, a hint, a cue. You step closer and take my face in your hands and then you’re smiling and leaning nearer and gently, tenderly, carefully kissing me, and you whisper against my lips, “I love you, angel.”

That’s my cue. And now I remember my lines.


End file.
